


A Rain to Wash the World Clean

by madzeldacryaotic



Category: Cowboy Bebop
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, Poor Jet is the only adult, Post Movie, Team as Family, Whump, spike is a mess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-23
Updated: 2017-06-23
Packaged: 2018-11-17 13:22:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11276133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madzeldacryaotic/pseuds/madzeldacryaotic
Summary: Spike never had the best sense of self-preservation. His fight with Vincent took more out of him than he told Jet.The Bebop crew (specifically Spike) post movie.





	A Rain to Wash the World Clean

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! So, even though I've been writing for a while, this is my first ever fanfiction. Cowboy Bebop holds a very special place in my heart and re-watching the movie recently has reminded me why. I tried to do the characters the justice they deserve. Majority of the chapter in Jet's POV, the end is in Spike's.
> 
> PLEASE GIVE ME FEEDBACK- I'm considering continuing this story, maybe from different POVs.

As Jet flew beside Faye over the city, the rain continued to splatter on the windshield of the Hammerhead. After the chaos of the parade and the explosions that followed, the streets below were surprisingly quiet. People watched the sky in confusion as the unexpected shower continued to fall. Some had taken cover in nearby buildings and were staring out from the windows. Most traffic had come to a standstill as well. Between the streets being blocked off for the parade and the surprise rainstorm, the crowds had nowhere to go. The stillness was a sharp contrast to the earlier panic and noise when the floats had burst.

The sky was dark now that the sun had set. The only light source available was the glow of the city streets and buildings made soft around the edges by the weather. Jet thought about how that made the city look all the more peaceful. They continued to fly in silence until Faye asked through the comm,

“What did the rain do?”

“It spread the vaccine much faster than the nano-machines could act. A rain to wash the world clean” Jet replied, still somewhat lost in thought.

_Funny how just some water seems to calm people down._

“Hmm. Maybe there’ll be a rainbow later, huh?” Faye’s voice was light and teasing. She paused for a second, thinking. “...Hey...”

From her tone, Jet knew she was about to ask him another question. “What?”

“...You wanna stop at the race track?” She asked playfully.

“Huh? Hmph.”

_Classic. Someone should really tell her she has a gambling problem._

“You never learn, do ya, Faye,” he said, exasperation clear in his voice despite the fact he was grinning.

Faye scoffed at his reply.

“So is that a yes, or…” She trailed off, her tone still playful.

Jet sighed. To be honest, he felt too tired to do anything right now, much less go waste more money and energy at a horse race. He felt worked down to the bone. Jet sighed again, harder this time.

_When did I become so_ old _?_

“I’m going to have to say no on that offer. It’s been one hell of a day, and we still have some damage control to take care of,” Jet said.

“Aww, you’re no fun,” Faye whined.

Jet snorted. He could just image her pouting in her seat, arms crossed and her face in a sour frown like a bratty child who just got denied candy. He let out a short bark of laughter. A spoiled kid was a surprisingly accurate representation of Faye.

“Hey, what’s so funny?!” She yelled indignantly over the comm, “what are you laughing at you big-”

“-Hey, uh, Jet? Are you there?” Spike suddenly cut in, stopping Faye mid-insult.

Jet responded immediately, glad that he was spared from Faye’s wrath (for now).

“Yeah, I copy. Go ahead.” In the background, Faye let out a frustrated curse for being interrupted.

“I’m in need of evac; the cops aren’t gonna be happy to see a random cowboy involved in Vincent’s death… Too many questions,” Spike sighed.

Jet frowned. He sounded uncharacteristically wistful. A small bit of worry wormed its way into his gut. He tried (unsuccessfully) to push it down.

“What about your police friend- doesn’t she want your testimony or something?” Jet asked.

“Electra? Nah, she’s not police,” he replied, “besides, it was her job to take him out alone, so my involvement wouldn’t really help things for her anyway.”

Jet thought for a moment. He supposed it made sense.

“I guess you’re right,” Jet mumbled.

“I always am, Jet. Really, you should know that about me by now” Spike replied quickly.

_Now_ there’s _the Spike I know. Always eager to be a cocky sonofabitch._

“All right, I’m heading to your coordinates now, wise-ass. Stay there,” Jet grumbled as he turned the Hammerhead in the correct direction.

“You got it, _mom_.” Spike replied with heavy sarcasm.

Faye snickered loudly, and he could just _hear_ Spike’s smug grin.

“Well, because I’m such a _big girl_ now, I’m going to fly back to the Bebop _all_ by myself, m’kay? Or do I still need your permission?” Faye said in a sappy voice. She didn’t even wait for his reply before taking off.

Jet sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration, much like a mother fed up with her rowdy children would do.

_Those little shits think they’re_ so _funny-_

A high, singsong voice interrupted Jet’s brooding, and Faye dissolved into hysterical laughter.

“Hahaha! Jet is the mommy~! Jet is the-”

“HAHAHAHA-”

“ **EDWARD, YOU’RE NOT EVEN** -”

“-mommy~! Jet is-”

“- **SUPPOSED TO BE** -”

“HAHAA- owoww, my side-”

“- **ON THIS** -”

“-Jet is the mom-”

“-HAHHAAHA-”

“- **_COMM LINE!!!_ ** ”

“-mommy~!”

“-I’m gonna die from laughing!” Faye shrieked.

 

* * *

 

Jet arrived at the tower in just under four minutes from the time of Spike’s call. Apparently, being angry while flying makes him fly faster than normal. He ended up attempting to block Ed out of the call, with little success. She somehow hacked her way back in _everytime_ , prompting Faye to laugh her ass off each time Ed continued her song. Eventually, Ed had gotten bored and stopped singing about two minutes into the flight. Faye, however, was _still_ letting out poorly muffled snickers. Jet didn’t say anything because he was honestly shocked at how funny she found the incident- He’d never heard her laugh that hard before. He had even heard a quiet laugh from Spike, although he sounded strained.

Below, the wail of police sirens and flashing red and blue lights surrounded the base of the tower. Spike and Electra stood standing on the edge, their forms silhouetted by the bright light of the Halloween sign behind them. Since the rain had softened down to a sprinkle, the two unmoving figures were clearly visible. They looked angular and intimidating, as if their forms were cut from pitch-black marble. Jet’s previously light mood sobered at the sight.

Jet pulled up as close to the tower’s floor as he could and opened the hatch. He saw Spike slowly turn to Electra. Jet looked away to give them privacy for their goodbyes.

_She must be pretty damn special in order for Spike to be interested in her._

They exchanged a few words that got swept away by the wind before Jet could hear them. A minute later, Jet felt the Hammerhead lurch with Spike’s weight and heard him grunt. He closed the hatch and turned to look at Spike.

It was hard to see in the dim light, but Jet could see that his face was beaten to hell and he was bleeding in some places. His dripping, dirty, ripped clothes hung off his skinny frame and made him look smaller than usual. His hair was soaking wet and it stuck plastered to his forehead. That, combined with his unusually resigned and subdued attitude, made him look like a starving preteen that just lost an alley fight for the hundredth time.

_Damn, Spike looks like shit._

“Damn, Spike. You look like shit,” Jet stated eloquently.

“...Yeah.” Spike turned away from Jet’s gaze to stare out the window.

_What, no wise-ass comment_ now _?_

Jet could pick up from Spike’s pathetic sounding answer that Spike wouldn’t want to talk or even interact with him at the moment, so he just focused on flying back to the Bebop. That didn’t stop Jet from noticing the way Spike looked back at the brightly glowing tower as the ship angled in the opposite direction. And it didn’t stop Jet from noticing the way the lone, cold silhouette of Electra stood looking back at him as they flew out of sight.

 

* * *

 

Once the Hammerhead was safely inside the Bebop, Jet made his way through the hallway towards the main room, Spike following with his head hung low and shoulders hunched. One hand was pressed into his side.

_He’s probably going to be in a bad mood for a while. No doubt he’d want to be left alone to lick his wounds._

That thought filled him with worry. While exiting the Hammerhead, Jet finally saw the blood soaking into Spike’s shirt. Although Spike tried to cross his arms to hide it, he noticed the new gunshot graze in his side. Every bit of Jet was itching to yell at Spike to let him stitch it, but the look in Spike’s eyes when Jet opened his mouth to offer his help told him to forget about it. That left Jet to once again (unsuccessfully) try to push his worry down.

_He’s an adult, he knows how to adequately stitch a wound closed. He’s done it a thousand times before. He needs space right now. He needs space-_

Spike stopped in the middle of the hallway. Jet took a few more steps before also stopping.

_What are you doing, do you actually want to talk for once?_

Jet thought to himself. He sighed and turned around, the question on his lips- but then he _saw_ Spike, and his heart dropped into his stomach.

He was leaning heavily on the wall for support, and even then he was barely on his feet. Blood was dripping onto the floor, his breathing ragged and heavy. Jet met his eyes.

“...Whoops” Spike breathed. A small smile appeared on his face just as his eyes rolled into the back of his head and he collapsed and slid down the wall he was leaning onto.

_Shit shit shit shit-_

Jet rushed forward to kneel at his side and quickly got Spike’s arm around his shoulder. Spike moaned in pain and his eyes fluttered open.

“Spike, you goddamn idiot- don’t you go bleeding out on the hallway floor, now- c’mon stay awake and work with me, you ungrateful shit, you can’t sleep yet-”

Jet started babbling as he slowly stood up while supporting Spike. Whether he was babbling for his own sake or Spike’s was entirely irrelevant. He was mildly panicking at this point, so it didn’t matter too much.

“C’mon, you ass, we’ll take it one step at a time- focus- left foot, right- yeah- y’know, it’s pretty advanced for your level of intelligence, but it’s called walking-”

“-Jet.” Spike forced out his name and grabbed a handful of Jet’s shirt with a surprisingly strong grip.

“Yeah?”

“...We left my ship.” He said softly, all of his previous strength gone from his voice. He uncurled his fist, freeing the material of Jet’s shirt, but he continued to stare into his eyes while waiting for a response. The quiet, hopeless way he said it physically pained Jet to hear. He sounded so young. The tired expression and the bruises on his face made him look so old.

“Huh?” Jet said, not understanding what he was talking about.

“...My ship- the Swordfish- we left-”

His meaning suddenly clicked. Jet reassured, “Oh. Don’t worry about that, Spike. We won’t leave without her. We can’t get her right now, because we gotta fix you up first, but I swear we’ll get her. We won’t leave her.”

Even though Jet thought Spike might snap at him for talking at him like he was a child, Jet’s words seemed to pacify him, because he once again looked down at his feet. Jet searched his face, trying to discern what he might be thinking, but Spike kept the same tired expression as before.

“...Let’s focus on walking” Jet said. All he got was a hum in response.

Twenty-three painful steps down the hall later (all of which were spent half- heartedly insulting Spike), Jet pushed open the door to the main room of the Bebop carrying the bloody, now unconscious mess that was Spike Spiegel.

Faye immediately jumped up from her sprawled position on the couch when she saw them, and the towel holding up her wet hair was flung into Ein’s sleeping face, causing him to bark indignantly. Ed also jumped to attention when she sensed her urgency.

“What the _hell_ happened to _him_ !?” Faye shouted, sounding furious, “did _Vincent_ do _all that_ to him!?”

Ed took one look at Spike before shrieking and running around the room like a headless chicken. Ein started howling in response and chased after her.

“ScaaaAAAAAAaaary zoooOOOoombieeee Spiiiiiikieeeee~ COME TO EAT ED! COME TO GOBBLE EIN! COME TO-”

“Ed! Stop yelling and stand still! Spike’s not dead and he’s _not_ a zombie!” Jet shouted. To his surprise, she froze in place and stopped yelling. “Now, if you want to help him, you’d go get the first aid kit from the kitchen,” Jet added. She promptly zipped out of the room towards the kitchen with both arms outstretched, making airplane noises as she went. Ein, of course, followed.

_Since when does she listen to anyone when they give her a command?_

Jet shook his head. “Faye, help me out here,” he motioned to Spike’s other side. She quickly climbed the small flight of stairs up to the doorway and brought his arm across her shoulders, mirroring Jet. Supporting his weight together, they walked him over to the couch and gently set him down.

Jet began methodically taking off his ruined clothes and assessing the damage.

Spike was in bad shape. His face was beaten thoroughly and already beginning to bruise into angry red-purple color with yellow around the edges. Blood _still_ trickled sluggishly from his hairline and his split lip. His knuckles were scraped to hell, and there was a dark stain growing from his chest in addition to the already existing stain on his side. On top of that, water still dripped off his wet hair and clothes.

“Shit. I knew it. That damn idiot tore open his chest wound during the fight,” Jet grumbled, opening his shirt to see the blood soaked bandages wrapped around Spike’s chest.

“Edward is baaaaaaaaack~!” Ed burst energetically  into the room, Ein at her feet. She ran towards Jet with the first aid kit in hand, only to stop dead in her tracks once her eyes landed on Spike. She hesitated. After a second, she walked forward and silently gave Jet the first aid kit before plopping herself down on the floor right next to where Spike’s head rested on the couch. Ein did the same. She crossed her arms and with an air of finality, said, “I’m not leaving no matter what.”

Jet and Faye watched her with amazed expressions. They looked at each other, then looked back at Edward. Despite everything they’ve seen her do, this was by far the weirdest.

_Ed, being hesitant and shy? The world has truly ended._

Jet shook himself out of his daze and continued removing the bandages from Spike’s chest. When he finally was left with nothing but skin, his stomach lurched. The gunshot wounds were still bleeding sluggishly, but what was more concerning were the bruises mottled everywhere on his torso. They were obviously the result of fighting Vincent hand-to-hand, but they stood out violently colored against skin that was pale from blood loss.

Jet noticed that the bullet graze on his side was surrounded by familiar nail marks and indents.

_That fucker clawed into his side and dug his fingers in- just like he did to his chest the first time._

Beside him, Faye shifted. She made a dramatic show of yawning and inspecting her nails as she asked, “So, is he gonna die or what?”

Jet could tell that her tone was forcefully apathetic. He chose not to call her out on it. “No… He’ll make it- he’s just out cold from the blood loss,” he grumbled as he began to clean away the blood from Spike’s torso.

From the floor by Ed, Ein whimpered and nudged Spike’s hand with his nose. Jet’s heart clenched when he saw the rivulets of watered- down blood trailing from Spike’s gangly arm and pooling in his open palm. Ein proceeded to lick his hand clean. Jet sighed and fondled Ein’s ears.

“That bastard’s gonna live whether he likes it or not.”

 

* * *

 

Spike crawled his way back to consciousness slowly. He was warm and everything around him was quiet and dark. He didn’t want to wake up yet; he just felt so _tired_. It’s as if he never got any sleep. Most of all, he was pretty sure that he’d been having a good dream for once, although he couldn’t remember what it was about…

He tried to cling to the fuzzy, warm images in his head but it was like trying to hold on to fine-grained sand with a net. The images slipped away and left him with nothing but a vague feeling of contentment.

He gave up and opened his eyes. He was greeted with the shadowy sight of the ceiling of the Bebop’s main room. Immediately he noticed that his chest and side- no, scratch that, his _everything_ \- hurt like _hell_.

Soon after, he noticed that the source of the comfortable heat was coming from a lump snuggled into his side. Some distant part of him identified the lump as Ein. For some reason, he wasn’t as disturbed by that as he would normally be. Mostly, it just confused him.

With some (painful) effort, Spike turned his head to look around the dark room, and what he saw confused him even more. Ed was sleeping stomach-down on the floor right next to the couch, her face buried in a pillow. Faye was curled up on the couch opposite of him, using her coat as a makeshift blanket. And finally, Jet was sleeping sitting up in a chair, his arms crossed and his chin tucked down to his chest. He was snoring softly.

Spike moved his head to stare back at the ceiling. He knew that he _should_ feel disgust for this rag-tag sleepover, that he _should_ shove Ein off of him, and that he _should_ stumble to his own damn room to sleep in privacy… But he didn’t.

It shocked him when he realized that he felt comfortable with this.

Spike thought back to when the ship was always silent and orderly, and when the only human Spike would interact with was Jet. Back then, their conversations were short and impersonal. It was all about work. Jet stayed out of his business, and he stayed out of Jet’s. Over time, they somehow got more personal. Maybe it had to do with the trust you build when you cover a person’s back in a life-or-death situation. Whatever it was, Jet somehow became a friend. Probably his only friend. And Spike was okay with that.

Then came the dog. Spike knew that Jet was always a softie deep down, it was obvious from the way he talked about civilian casualties (and the way he yelled at Spike when he managed to hurt himself)- but a _dog_? Spike had tried to argue against it, but he gave in when it became clear that Jet was never going to see reason. Besides, the Bebop was Jet’s, after all. He had the right to do what he wanted. At least the dog wasn’t too big or loud.

It was barely a week afterward that Faye invited herself into their crew. Now _she_ had pissed Spike off even more than Ein had. She _still_ pissed him off, but he had gotten used to her, for the most part. She was more bearable now that they knew each other’s mannerisms and had gotten good at avoiding fights with each other. Spike figured as long as she kept to her own space and helped out on bounties, she was not too bad to keep around. At the very least, it was fun to tease someone who he knew couldn’t resist teasing him back (and if Spike happened to relate to her a little bit, that was his business and no one needed to know).

Edward was the most surprising addition, considering that he thought Jet would have at least enough sense not to let a literal _child_ come with them on their murderous adventures through space. But, in the end, she really hadn’t give them any other choice when she hacked the Bebop. Spike had to admit her computer genius had made bounty hunting infinitely easier. And as a bonus, she was just… Fun to be around. Her craziness was something that Spike (reluctantly) enjoyed.

Spike had known he was getting sentimental, he just never realized the extent until now. Somehow, this room full of idiots made him feel comfortable. That thought _should_ have made him worry, but it didn’t. He knew that this couldn’t last and that they were all going to leave one way or another, but he couldn’t bring himself to care about that at the moment. He was too tired.

At the moment he was warm, comfortable, and he felt alive.

The rest, he’d figure out later.

He went back to sleep.

 

**Author's Note:**

> While writing, I was listening to this-  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JT6u0bE6vTw


End file.
